Evaluation of barriers and enablers through integrative multicriteria decision mapping: Developing sustainable community energy in Indian context

Abstract

Community Energy systems are predicted to emerge as a clean and sustainable means of providing last mile energy access to off-grid communities in developing nations like India. Interestingly, rate of deployment and sustainability of such systems are low due to lack of conceptual framework determining sustainability of community energy projects with respect to inherent grassroots barriers. There is a dearth of pertinent research studies providing best practices to project planners and decision makers for accelerated deployment and sustainable operation of community microgrids. This paper aims to identify the typical grassroots barriers and their relationship with corresponding enablers under seven broad dimensions with respect to solar, biomass and micro-hydro based community energy projects. Thereby, set of critical barriers and enablers is extracted by applying integrated multi criteria decision making approach to develop decision maps and conceptual framework for realizing sustainable community energy projects. The developed decision maps offer best practices to community energy projects’ stakeholders to ensure sustainable project planning. The conceptual framework establishes direct and indirect relationships among significant enablers and critical barriers while providing policy implications to decision makers and utilities for achieving Universal Electrification through clean energy sources.